Keep An Eye Out

A Background Game…

Keep an Eye Out is a Victorian parlor game meant to "liven up” the background of any event. A minimalistic secret identity game designed on coasters and crafted by hand.

Rules

Shuffle and deal out the coasters at random.

Look at the bottom of your coaster in secret. If you find an open eye you are now an Inspector; if you find a closed eye you are the Villain.

If the Villain makes eye contact and winks at you directly you must count to five silently and then die dramatically. No player may avoid eye contact. You must not indicate who killed you.

The only way to stop the Villain is to catch them in the act of winking at someone else and successfully accuse them within the time limit.

If you believe you saw the Villain wink at a victim other than yourself you must yell out your accusation: "Keep an Eye Out, [their name] is the killer!" If the victim dies before you make your accusation then the killer gets away.

If you are the Villain and you were accused in time you must reveal your coaster.

When the Villain is caught, or all Inspectors have been winked to death, the game ends. Go ahead and play again!

Bystander Clause

If there are more players than coasters make excess players bystanders; bystanders can be killed but they cannot accuse.

If an Inspector asks a living bystander if they saw [suspect name] wink, a bystander can implicate with a yes or no.

Bystanders must all be killed off before Inspectors can be winked at.

+ Hypnotist Varient

The Villain no longer kills. Instead when winked at victims are no longer allowed to speak at all.

+ Occultist Varient

Coasters are swapped every 2 minutes clockwise between living players.

+ Apothecary Varient

When winked at victims have 5 seconds to finish their drink before the poison takes effect. If victims can chug their whole beverage in that time they may survive the wink, but are rendered nonsensical for the rest of the game (they must speak in nonsense and gobbledegook).

+ Moriarty Varient

The Villain may now fake their death.

+ Monarchy Varient

For 6 or more players. Before handing out the coasters, choose one player to be the Regent. Hand out the coasters to anyone except the Regent. Anytime the villain kills a player, play stops. The Regent must execute another player for the murder before play can resume. The Regent may not be targeted by the villain or for execution. Play ends when either the Regent chooses to execute the villain (good guys win) or when the villain has wound up alone with the Regent (Villain wins).

Keep An Eye Out is our second handmade game.

Each batch is very limited, but we plan on continuing to make more in the future. Join our mailing list to stay up to date on new editions, new handmade games, and what comes next.